


Sweets to Burn the Lips

by bookjunkiecat



Series: Savvy's Holiday Fic [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 1960s, Baking, Bittersweet Ending, Christmas, Crossover Pairings, F/F, Lesbian Character, Manhattan, Not Canon Compliant, Period Typical Attitudes, Pie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21677089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookjunkiecat/pseuds/bookjunkiecat
Summary: Before she was Mrs Hudson, before Sherlock and Baker Street, before she met her husband, Martha lived in Manhatten in the late 1960s. During a job as a bakers assistant, she meets a compelling woman.
Relationships: Martha Hudson/Peggy Carter
Series: Savvy's Holiday Fic [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558120
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21





	Sweets to Burn the Lips

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt: Mince Pies
> 
> Thanks to Kat for her Christmas prompts. I'm afraid this one isn't Johnlock either.
> 
> Not Canon compliant.

_1968_

_Manhattan_

“This is where you’ll be working, Miss Sissons,” the kitchen services director said, leading the group of new hires to a halt in front of one of the doors in the long subterranean corridor. His flat, nasal American accent butchered her name, but after five months in America, Martha was used to that. “You’ll be assisting Mrs Simpson with all the desserts for the holidays.”

_Girl,_ Martha thought. At thirty-one she didn’t feel like much of a girl. She pushed open the swinging door and was immediately sucked into the vortex of energy. 

The days blended into aching feet, clouds of flour and sugar, and an endless parade of desserts. Mrs Simpson was very much in charge and enjoyed bossing Martha around, being very particular about how things were baked--mostly that they be baked according to the recipes. Even if those were rubbish and Martha could have improved upon them, she was told to do as the recipe called for.

It wasn’t a great job, but it paid better than anything she’d gotten so far, and it was letting her save. Martha had to resist stopping at the shops along Fifth Avenue and lingering too long. It wasn’t just things she longed for her own sake. She would have liked to have bought things for the littles back home, but Mum wouldn’t let them have them, nor would she take any money from Martha, if she sent it. No matter how badly it was needed. Never let it be said that Geraldine Sissons would back down from a stance, once taken.

So Martha just window-shopped, and missed her small sisters, and tried not to feel so terribly lonely in this great big, tiny little city.

Americans celebrated Thanksgiving with overeating and the Macy’s Day Parade--that Martha could endorse, it was great fun. Much more fun than making two hundred pumpkin pies. Nasty things.

Then it was back to the usual cardboard pie crusts, heavy cakes and stodgy cookies. 

Christmas meant an uptick in the number of “holiday” sweets they made. Martha sighed and gritted her teeth and made ever more terrible desserts according to their terrible recipes. 

Until the day Mrs Simpson instructed her to make the mince pies.

Martha might have bucked a lot of tradition and fled England and be living a bright, modern life, but she was English to her soul. One thing she would not allow to be ruined were mince pies. So she left them until it was time for Mrs Simpson’s coffee break. Once the woman had trundled down the hall to the staff canteen, Martha sprang into action. These would be the best mince pies these Americans had ever tasted.

* * *

At the end of an achingly long day, three days before Christmas, Martha hung up her apron, dusted herself off, and, wrapped in her coat, clocked out. A very tiresome subway journey and a longish walk lay ahead of her, and she was already tired at the thought of it.

There was a woman in the hallway outside the ladies cloakroom. An older woman, mid-forties, with an elegant chignon, a no-nonsense Hetty Carnegie suit and challenging dark eyes. “Miss Sissons,” she greeted coolly.

Martha stopped, a bit flustered. “Yes, that’s me.”

She stepped forward, eyes on Martha’s face. “You made the mince pies.”

“I did,” Martha agreed, wondering if they’d sent this terribly glamorous Englishwoman to reprimand her.

“I’ve been working here for twenty years and this is the first time in two decades that the mince pies have been edible.” She stepped into Martha’s space, held out both hands and wrapped them around Martha’s right, squeezing it, _“Thank you.”_

Reeling from the warm, electric press of the other woman’s fingers, the faint, tantalizing smell of her expensive perfume, Martha whispered, “You’re welcome.”

“It took me right back to my youth,” she continued, seemingly unaware she was still clasping Martha’s tingling hand. “I haven’t felt so truly at home in America as I did upon that first bite.”

“I’m so glad,” Martha managed. “Miss…”

“Oh, do forgive me. Carter. I’m Peggy Carter.”

Peggy. Martha tasted the shape of her name in her mouth and found she liked it. “Miss Carter,” she said almost shyly, “I’m glad you liked the pies. I took the liberty of improving upon the recipe.”

“I’m so glad you did,” Peggy Carter said warmly, smiling at her. “I shall have a word with the catering department and make it an official change.”

_Oh Lord, I’m going to be fired!_ “I’ll be happy to share the recipe.”

The older woman seemed to notice for the first time that Martha was wearing her street clothes, “I see you’re going home, don’t let me keep you.”

They turned out to be going in the same direction. Martha stole a sideways glance at Peggy and found her looking back at her frankly, eyes assessing. Martha blushed for the first time in five years. “I really did enjoy your pie,” Peggy said, as they rode up in the lift. “Perhaps you’d let me buy you a drink sometime, as a way to thank you?”

It was no doubt politely meant, not serious. “How about now?” Martha breathed, cheeks hot.

Peggy gave her a level look. “I know a quiet place two women can go and not be...disturbed...by mashers.”

Heart in her throat, Martha stepped out of the lift, “It’s Friday night and I have nowhere to be…”

* * *

It was just one stolen night, sitting close in the intimacy of a dark snug at a nameless bar. Knees touching, eyes meeting. Sipping their drinks and finding their way through a potentially awkward conversation to a mutual understanding.

Riding in the back of Peggy’s chauffeured town car, Peggy’s soft, perfumed palm on her knee, burning a hole through Martha’s stocking.

A night between the crisp sheets of the bed in Peggy’s apartment on the Upper West Side. An abashed cup of tea the next morning, wrapped in Peggy’s second best dressing gown, blushing every time they met one another’s eyes.

Martha never had another night like that in all her life. Not before Peggy, nor after. It was only one night in a life that spanned nearly ninety years. But until the day she died, Martha Sissons Hudson remembered the exact shape of Peggy Carter’s lips and how she tasted of mince pies and forbidden pleasure.


End file.
